There was a time when you could walk around Georgetown, and street after street would be lined with traditional houses – not necessarily always the grand, elegant, colonial variety, but also the small-scale, equally attractive cottages of the working people. No longer. The obliteration of the material heritage continues apace; very few, it seems, have an interest in preserving what little remains of our unique wooden structures of an earlier era. Some of the more recent depredations took place in Camp Street, where the Demerara Bank replaced two colonial structures, one of them quite graceful. It is not that the bank building is repulsive in any way; it is a typical modern construction, albeit with a bit of architectural flair. It is just that without appropriate legislation in place, there will be nothing to stop companies viewing the space occupied by traditional structures which are worth preserving as just mere empty lots.
At least if the bank design won’t cause anyone sleepless nights, the same cannot be said of the monstrous frame rising skywards some way down, on the other side of the road. That too replaces a large, stylish, old building. What is developing, judging from the skeleton, is one of those horrendous rectangular edifices, looking for all the world like so many shipping containers stacked on top of each other. Presumably they will be finished with the ubiquitous coating of opaque, black glass.
There are still a few traditional houses hanging on; Barrack Street and one or two other streets in Kingston boast some, for example. Main Street and its High Street extension have Red House, the Prime Minister’s residence and State House, although on the other side of the road the venerable Park Hotel burnt down a good few years ago, and before that one of the oldest homes in Georgetown – the Psaila residence – was allowed to moulder away and finally had to be demolished. The old Cambridge too ‒ its function quite apart ‒ was in times gone by, an attractive property, and while its subsequent owners (who had different uses for it) kept a few items of its wrought iron work to append to the new concrete walls, all the aesthetic charm disappeared.
The problem is, of course, that these larger older houses are extraordinarily expensive to maintain, built, as many of them were, of pitch pine. Furthermore, when it comes to repairing the detailed features, it is hard to find craftsmen who can make Demerara shutters or create a delicate piece of fretwork ‒ in the case of the latter, partly because even the most accommodating of Guyana hardwoods do not lend themselves easily to that kind of carving. The originals were made of pine wood, and for many years, for obvious reasons, no carpenter would have been given a licence to import this.
In the case of the larger properties, the owners pass on or migrate, and a younger generation, even if it is around, simply does not want the burden of them. Sometimes they are rented out for a time, but eventually, given the cost of maintenance, it eventually occurs to the owners that the land on which they are situated is where the real profit lies. And in central Georgetown and its immediate periphery, land is at a premium. Furthermore, companies which purchase these buildings simply do not have uses for them; the adaptations which would be necessary for a banking operation, for example, could not be effected in a colonial-style edifice which had once been a private home. In terms of efficiency and cost they would need a new building entirely.
The government is the one in the best position to utilize and/or preserve older structures, although the record of all our administrations in this regard has not always been exemplary. One has to wonder, for example, why the previous government allowed the Prime Minister’s house to deteriorate to the extent it has. Leaving aside the implied insult to the prime ministerial office, the building itself is one of the oldest surviving houses in the city, dating back to the middle of the nineteenth century. Having said that, of course, the government simply cannot be made responsible for every colonial structure in private hands, including the small cottages with their Portuguese glass and individual front doors which also need to be preserved.
It can, however, look at amending the law on the National Trust, which served its purpose in its time, but which is perhaps in need of revision. In addition to this it can explore ways of making it possible for private owners of identified heritage buildings to acquire properly cured wood at subsidized prices – or some alternative arrangement which would give owners a vested interest in retaining their historical properties. We are the custodians of what has been bequeathed to us, and it is our duty to pass it on to the generations which come after us.
A year ago, no one would have thought it possible for Georgetown to look as clean and orderly as it does today; it is a triumph of sorts, which lifts everyone’s spirits. Various comments have been made about how the capital is now presentable for tourists, but as has been often said before, tourists are not interested in seeing buildings which may be modern, but which are poor replicas of that with which they are familiar at home. What they want to see is something unique; something which belongs to this country alone.
‘Heritage’ nowadays is an integral part of the tourism product, and now is the time to think imaginatively around this subject. Certainly there was no point when Georgetown was little better than a glorified rubbish dump; who wants to see a heritage building rising out of a garbage heap? It might be remarked, en passant, that it is a good sign that the administration has turned over the residence where the Caricom Secretaries General used to live to the Ministry of Tourism; it is a most appropriate venue for this branch of government.
Now that we have started to take the cleaning in hand, as suggested above, we need to take the heritage in hand on all fronts, and not just in Georgetown. And as a final thought, there are many things which could be done, and one of them is a sugar museum – at Wales, perhaps?
